Do you know of anyone else who gets these feelings when in a similar mental state that you are?
What would be useful would be a double-blind study of a large sample group with controls to help weed out any bias in the answer.

This would help us narrow down whether it was a universal trait of humanity, or an individual symptom experienced by relatively few people.
From there, we could look at the evidence and determine if this is a common symptom in people who are experiencing creative thoughts, or simply your own personal experience.

I haven’t heard of anyone else who gets these types of feelings. A study like that would be useful, but might still be inconclusive on a study based on such subjective evidence, which means there is still the possibility that….

something may be intervening

Or a well documented human propensity toward overactive agent detection may be resulting in your assumption of this possiblity, and assigning it an inflated probability, when a simple physiological explanation is out there waiting to be discovered.

I will acknowledge this is a possibility.

Another possibility is a paranormal explanation, i.e. no clear scientific explanation.

Without evidence, you’re just spitballing.

Without a clear scientific explanation, you are also spitballing in being critical of my openness to the possibility of something that is perhaps not even measurable with our current technology.

No. What I’m doing is exhibiting a healthy skepticism about assumptive explanations involving untestable hypotheses that lack any evidence.

Is that an admission that you cannot dismiss the possibility that something may be intervening?

Without a clear scientific explanation, you are also spitballing in being critical of my openness to the possibility of something that is perhaps not even measurable with our current technology.

Something may be intervening in your cognitive function and making it impossible for you to act like a person of more than sub-normal intelligence for your age. Grow up, or take up basket weaving to keep busy. Otherwise, you’re just a clown. You should thank me. A person of your mindset can use insults and/or reasoned criticism received from others to confirm the rightness of his opinions. You don’t get reasoned criticism from me; I would not so dignify your idiocy.

The feeling you get when you feel ‘chills running up the spine’ is caused by small muscles at the base of the hairs on your back. It is a vestigial response which remains from when our ancestors had more body hair and more predators. It is caused by a pilomotor reflex and is a remnant of your ‘fight or flight’ response.

Our psychological/emotional state affects the endocrine and autonomic nervous system. Cognition triggers chemical reactions. You are having a normal reaction to an emotional stimulus. It no longer saves you from any bears, but may help you to remember your anniversary.

Real honesty is accepting the theories that best explain the actual data even if those explanations contradict our cherished beliefs.-Scotty

The feeling you get when you feel ‘chills running up the spine’ is caused by small muscles at the base of the hairs on your back. It is a vestigial response which remains from when our ancestors had more body hair and more predators. It is caused by a pilomotor reflex and is a remnant of your ‘fight or flight’ response.

Our psychological/emotional state affects the endocrine and autonomic nervous system. Cognition triggers chemical reactions. You are having a normal reaction to an emotional stimulus. It no longer saves you from any bears, but may help you to remember your anniversary.

pilomotor reflex
n.
Contraction of the smooth muscle of the skin caused by mild application of a tactile stimulus or by local cooling and resulting in goose bumps.

What you are referring to is goose bumps. I am not referring to goose bumps when I refer to the chill up my spine. There is no tactile stimulus or cooling, or heating for that matter.

Have I somehow unintentionally reached an enlightened state of consciousness, as Sam talks about in The End of Faith? It’s worth considering. Or perhaps maybe something is intervening, even though it seems very unlikely from our current narrow window of perception. Even Salt Creek seems thoroughly befuddled on this one, so we can all keep a sliver of skeptical open-mindedness.

Maybe once science steps beyond the dark ages, mysteries like this will be solved.

The feeling you get when you feel ‘chills running up the spine’ is caused by small muscles at the base of the hairs on your back. It is a vestigial response which remains from when our ancestors had more body hair and more predators. It is caused by a pilomotor reflex and is a remnant of your ‘fight or flight’ response.

Our psychological/emotional state affects the endocrine and autonomic nervous system. Cognition triggers chemical reactions. You are having a normal reaction to an emotional stimulus. It no longer saves you from any bears, but may help you to remember your anniversary.

pilomotor reflex
n.
Contraction of the smooth muscle of the skin caused by mild application of a tactile stimulus or by local cooling and resulting in goose bumps.

What you are referring to is goose bumps. I am not referring to goose bumps when I refer to the chill up my spine. There is no tactile stimulus or cooling, or heating for that matter.

Have I somehow unintentionally reached an enlightened state of consciousness, as Sam talks about in The End of Faith? It’s worth considering. Or perhaps maybe something is intervening, even though it seems very unlikely from our current narrow window of perception. Even Salt Creek seems thoroughly befuddled on this one, so we can all keep a sliver of skeptical open-mindedness.

Maybe once science steps beyond the dark ages, mysteries like this will be solved.

I am skeptical. Skepticism, imo, does not mean attributing the unexplained to magic causes. Your definition is (like my post) incomplete. You can and do have contraction of smooth muscles without any tactile or cooling stimulus. You very likely ARE feeling a pilomotor reflex. You simply do not recognize it as such. We must be wary of our sensations. The cerebral cortex is not a reliable instrument for detection or interpretation of reflexes and many other phenomena.

The hypothalamus, the emotional center of the brain, transforms emotions into physical response. The receptors of neuropeptides, the hypothalamus also controls the body’s appetite, blood sugar levels, body temperature, adrenal and pituitary glands, heart, lung, digestive and circulatory, and immune systems. Neuropeptides, the chemical messenger hormones, carry emotions back and forth between the central nervous system (cns) and body. They link perception in the brain to the body via organs, hormones and cellular activity.

Heat is sensed by the skin and the hypothalamus, as both contain thermoreceptors. External environment temperature is sensed by the skin, and internal environment temperature is sensed by the hypothalamus.

Many animals, including humans, instinctively raise their hackles when annoyed, threatened, scared, surprised, or many other intense emotional stimuli such as a feeling of awe or wonder. It may make the animal look larger and more menacing and stimulates the cns to be more acutely responsive to incoming stimuli.

In addition to a cooling stimulus, emotions can trigger this cascade leading to any number of physiologic responses including contraction of the erector pili muscles at the center of the back. Cats have much thicker hair than humans so it is easy to see this happening to a cat. When the erector pili muscles contract on the back of a human, most humans describe this as feeling like a chill is running up their spine. The hairs are very small and very sensitive. You don’t have eyes in the back of your head to see this even if the hairs were large enough for you to see.

Real honesty is accepting the theories that best explain the actual data even if those explanations contradict our cherished beliefs.-Scotty

The feeling you get when you feel ‘chills running up the spine’ is caused by small muscles at the base of the hairs on your back. It is a vestigial response which remains from when our ancestors had more body hair and more predators. It is caused by a pilomotor reflex and is a remnant of your ‘fight or flight’ response.

Our psychological/emotional state affects the endocrine and autonomic nervous system. Cognition triggers chemical reactions. You are having a normal reaction to an emotional stimulus. It no longer saves you from any bears, but may help you to remember your anniversary.

What you are referring to is goose bumps. I am not referring to goose bumps when I refer to the chill up my spine. There is no tactile stimulus or cooling, or heating for that matter.

Have I somehow unintentionally reached an enlightened state of consciousness, as Sam talks about in The End of Faith? It’s worth considering. Or perhaps maybe something is intervening, even though it seems very unlikely from our current narrow window of perception.

I am skeptical. Skepticism, imo, does not mean attributing the unexplained to magic causes. Your definition is (like my post) incomplete. You can and do have contraction of smooth muscles without any tactile or cooling stimulus. You very likely ARE feeling a pilomotor reflex. You simply do not recognize it as such. We must be wary of our sensations. The cerebral cortex is not a reliable instrument for detection or interpretation of reflexes and many other phenomena.

Thank you, BMU, for an elucidating post. I couldn’t get past autonomic nervous system when I was considering Immediate Supression’s reported sensations.

In the face of an obvious biological explanation, I cannot see the point in speculating that “maybe something is intervening, even though it seems very unlikely from our current narrow window of perception.” But if you insist on trying to reason to a mystical explanation in lieu of the obvious and simple physical explanation, why complicate the process by positing that we have a “current narrow window of perception…” which presupposes some sort of future “broad window of perception.” Huxley’s essay was fun to read 40 years ago, and was used by some to justify a lot LSD and peyote, but I doubt it is a firm enough base upon which to build your speculations that your sensory experiences transcend physical explanation.

Immediate Suppression - 03 November 2008 05:06 AM

One thing that makes me wonder if there might be some type of ‘universal spirit’, or God if you want to call it that, is the chill I get up my spine every once in awhile when at the same time I am feeling inspired just from thinking about something. I see no evolutionary reason for this. I understand why animals and some people get a chill up their spine in situations of danger, buy why would I get it when I am feeling inspired?

If you reject the goose-bump explanation, the next most likely explanation would be that you have a neuropathy, and should see a neurologist.

The problem with neurologists is that very often when they identify a neuropathy, they simply say it is “ideopathic,” which is doctor talk for “we have no idea why you have this.”

But, as so many have said so often here, just because there is not a present obvious natural explanation for a phenomenon does not mean that it transcends the laws of nature or should be attributed to an invisible agent such as a ghost or spirit. Otherwise, we would have a weird cosmology in which the god that pulled things to the ground died when gravity was understood, and the god that put babies in women’s bellies died when reproduction was understood. In other words, unless you believe that prior to an understanding of the theory of gravity, supernatural forces pulled things to the ground, only to die when gravity was “discovered,” why would you think that some supernatural spirit was responsible for physical events you cannot presently explain scientifically?

“I am one of the few people I know who has argued in print that torture may be an ethical necessity in our war on terror.” Sam Harris October 17, 2005

I am skeptical. Skepticism, imo, does not mean attributing the unexplained to magic causes.

I have never directly attributed my chill up the spine to “magic causes.” I just said it makes it possible that something is intervening.

Beam_Me_Up - 07 November 2008 04:51 PM

You can and do have contraction of smooth muscles without any tactile or cooling stimulus. You very likely ARE feeling a pilomotor reflex.

This is an honest response, especially since you used the word “likely.” So I will admit that your explanation is possible. But it is also possible that something is intervening.

Beam_Me_Up - 07 November 2008 04:51 PM

You simply do not recognize it as such. We must be wary of our sensations. The cerebral cortex is not a reliable instrument for detection or interpretation of reflexes and many other phenomena.

I guess this means we shouldn’t trust human judgment then? Be wary of our sensations? Let’s see, there is sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. Ok, I’ll be wary of those.

What’s odd is that the phenomenon I am describing directly involves none of those.

Beam_Me_Up - 07 November 2008 04:51 PM

The hypothalamus, the emotional center of the brain, transforms emotions into physical response. The receptors of neuropeptides, the hypothalamus also controls the body’s appetite, blood sugar levels, body temperature, adrenal and pituitary glands, heart, lung, digestive and circulatory, and immune systems. Neuropeptides, the chemical messenger hormones, carry emotions back and forth between the central nervous system (cns) and body. They link perception in the brain to the body via organs, hormones and cellular activity.

Heat is sensed by the skin and the hypothalamus, as both contain thermoreceptors. External environment temperature is sensed by the skin, and internal environment temperature is sensed by the hypothalamus.

Many animals, including humans, instinctively raise their hackles when annoyed, threatened, scared, surprised, or many other intense emotional stimuli such as a feeling of awe or wonder. It may make the animal look larger and more menacing and stimulates the cns to be more acutely responsive to incoming stimuli.

In addition to a cooling stimulus, emotions can trigger this cascade leading to any number of physiologic responses including contraction of the erector pili muscles at the center of the back. Cats have much thicker hair than humans so it is easy to see this happening to a cat. When the erector pili muscles contract on the back of a human, most humans describe this as feeling like a chill is running up their spine. The hairs are very small and very sensitive. You don’t have eyes in the back of your head to see this even if the hairs were large enough for you to see.

This is a good explanation for the traditional chill up the spine. I am familiar that animals and even humans have this occur during stressful events, but it does not happen to me during stressful events, it happens in the opposite situation, when I am relaxed, usually alone, and generally when I am feeling content, not stressed.

And I don’t feel it on my skin, like hair standing up. I feel it right in the middle of my spine, and it rapidly rises to the center of the head, where their is somewhat of a climax. And if there doesn’t seem to be a trigger for it, how can you eliminate the possibility that something is intervening?

But if you insist on trying to reason to a mystical explanation in lieu of the obvious and simple physical explanation

I never said mystical, I said something.

teuchter - 07 November 2008 08:08 PM

.... why complicate the process by positing that we have a “current narrow window of perception…” which presupposes some sort of future “broad window of perception.”

I wasn’t referring to LSD, I was referring to the fact that humans know very little about the universe, compared at what we will likely know in the future. That is why our window of perception is narrow.

teuchter - 07 November 2008 08:08 PM

If you reject the goose-bump explanation, the next most likely explanation would be that you have a neuropathy, and should see a neurologist.

The problem with neurologists is that very often when they identify a neuropathy, they simply say it is “ideopathic,” which is doctor talk for “we have no idea why you have this.”

How many times has the neurologist told you this? just kidding, teuchner.

teuchter - 07 November 2008 08:08 PM

But, as so many have said so often here, just because there is not a present obvious natural explanation for a phenomenon does not mean that it transcends the laws of nature or should be attributed to an invisible agent such as a ghost or spirit. Otherwise, we would have a weird cosmology in which the god that pulled things to the ground died when gravity was understood, and the god that put babies in women’s bellies died when reproduction was understood. In other words, unless you believe that prior to an understanding of the theory of gravity, supernatural forces pulled things to the ground, only to die when gravity was “discovered,” why would you think that some supernatural spirit was responsible for physical events you cannot presently explain scientifically?

Because there is a lack of a clear scientific explanation. I also never said “supernatural spirit.” I just said something.

Throwing the word something without a shred of clarification is the exact same as saying everything, or nothing.

Because, something is only something if you have an explanation or piece of information that distinguishes it from nothing, and narrows it down from everything,

Supernatural spirit, or mystical are other variations of the word something spouted into sentences where the speaker intends to pass off nothing as an actual explanation.

I guess, in retrospect that makes the initial claim of this post correct, nothing is indeed intervening. Or everything if you will.

Now thats something alright.

You miss the point entirely, Unbeliever. I’m not trying to describe anything mystical, even though it comes off as such. It’s honestly hard for me to describe, and when I do put it in print, it never seems accurate. Another way of describing it would be as a slow charge of electricity passing through my spine. And thinking about it further, I can’t say it peaks in my head, sometimes it isn’t quite like that. So it’s pretty subjective, admittedly. But I also know that we still know very little about this universe, so I am not going to pretend to know everything about everything, as some humans ignorantly do. We have a very small perspective on the entire universe, there is still much to be discovered, and there are many potential avenues of discovery which we may not even have the slightest clue about right now. Just like how we at one time didn’t think we would ever think we would have the slightest clue about some of the things we now have discovered.

That is all I am acknowledging, when I say that there may be something about some of our subjective experiences which is connected to something we do not understand. At least, not yet. Maybe not until we die? Maybe not until we reach a higher level of consciousness?

Do you think humans have gone as far as we can as far as evolving, or is technology the only way we can advance? I stay open minded to the former, and open minded to the latter.

It’s honestly hard for me to describe, and when I do put it in print, it never seems accurate.

Is this where I point out that above is to most people the clue hinting at the fact that maybe you did not think things through as well as you thought you did?

Immediate Suppression - 08 November 2008 04:36 AM

That is all I am acknowledging, when I say that there may be something about some of our subjective experiences which is connected to something we do not understand. At least, not yet. Maybe not until we die? Maybe not until we reach a higher level of consciousness?

A higher state of nothingness? Or are we playing semantics here again. You are acknowledging that everything that you do not understand could be anything? Good for you. I’d bring that up with Buddha on your next meditation.
I do have to question the “until we die” part however. You do realize that your self awareness, memories etc are located in your brain? And death is particularly lethal to the brain and you. Death is also generally permanent. I have yet to even hear an explanation for this “higher consciuossness” mysteria.
I think I missed the article in science when they concluded that there is a scale of conscioussness, on which we are also able to determine direction. How much consciouss are you?
The only other kind of conscioussness available appears to be uncosncioussness, something that death will indeed supply you with in adequite ammounts.
I may not be right about every position I have on human mentality but its clear that you are at the very least 5.72 wronger.

Immediate Suppression - 08 November 2008 04:36 AM

Do you think humans have gone as far as we can as far as evolving, or is technology the only way we can advance? I stay open minded to the former, and open minded to the latter.

Err, common mistake. Evolution has no direction.
People like to think this, usually people who write movie scripts and science fiction with cool mutations and people developing super powers. Then there is lots of ordinary folks and by ordinary I mean stupid who watch these movies and suffer enough mental partitioning to think that Wolverine is a fictional character but the mechanics behind his genetics is not.

Evolution is blind, not as in a person with defective eyes but as in a person who lacks all the visual centers of the brain.
Evolution acts in the now, thats why its blind. Direction is a result that can only be seen by anyone capable of recording data from multiple nows, for instance humans. Mother nature at the helm of evolution is sort of like a child putting together a puzzle. As long as the pieces stick together whats on the picture is not very important, and more often than not half the pieces will also be upside down.

It’s honestly hard for me to describe, and when I do put it in print, it never seems accurate.

Is this where I point out that above is to most people the clue hinting at the fact that maybe you did not think things through as well as you thought you did?

You tell me, you’re the one typing.

Immediate Suppression - 08 November 2008 04:36 AM

That is all I am acknowledging, when I say that there may be something about some of our subjective experiences which is connected to something we do not understand. At least, not yet. Maybe not until we die? Maybe not until we reach a higher level of consciousness?

A higher state of nothingness? Or are we playing semantics here again. You are acknowledging that everything that you do not understand could be anything? Good for you.

Good for anyone who has a sense of honesty and open mindedness.

I do have to question the “until we die” part however. You do realize that your self awareness, memories etc are located in your brain? And death is particularly lethal to the brain and you. Death is also generally permanent. I have yet to even hear an explanation for this “higher consciuossness” mysteria.

Nobody knows what happens when we die, despite our efforts to look beyond the sky.

I think I missed the article in science when they concluded that there is a scale of conscioussness, on which we are also able to determine direction. How much consciouss are you?

Try that again. In English.

The only other kind of conscioussness available appears to be uncosncioussness, something that death will indeed supply you with in adequite ammounts.
I may not be right about every position I have on human mentality but its clear that you are at the very least 5.72 wronger.Your insults are about as effective as your translation of the English language. Keep trying. One day you’ll be just like your idol Salt Creek. 4,654 posts, 18,873 personal insults, not much originality or open-mindedness, and loving every minute of it. Apparently.

Immediate Suppression - 08 November 2008 04:36 AM

Do you think humans have gone as far as we can as far as evolving, or is technology the only way we can advance? I stay open minded to the former, and open minded to the latter.

Err, common mistake. Evolution has no direction.
People like to think this, usually people who write movie scripts and science fiction with cool mutations and people developing super powers. Then there is lots of ordinary folks and by ordinary I mean stupid who watch these movies and suffer enough mental partitioning to think that Wolverine is a fictional character but the mechanics behind his genetics is not.

Evolution is blind, not as in a person with defective eyes but as in a person who lacks all the visual centers of the brain.
Evolution acts in the now, thats why its blind. Direction is a result that can only be seen by anyone capable of recording data from multiple nows, for instance humans. Mother nature at the helm of evolution is sort of like a child putting together a puzzle. As long as the pieces stick together whats on the picture is not very important, and more often than not half the pieces will also be upside down.

Evolution has been blind traditionally, but you are simply being close-minded to the power and potential of the human mind. What we think about and focus upon and how intently we do it determines what we do and how well we do it. That right there shows the power of the human mind.

There is the potential to advance the possibility of the human mind/body to be able to have senses beyond the one’s we currently have, but it will not happen unless we start working on it. Call it what you want, but it is scientific progress at its essence, and those who reject it outright are anti-science, anti-progress, anti-human, and pro-religious in nature.